A novice philosopher turned equestrian…

The Power

I was plonked in front of a group of kids on horseback today and told to teachthem. It was an interesting experience. I did quite enjoy it despite the fact that I had no time to plan and completely lost my train of thought half way through the lesson. I’m glad Ginny gave me the opportunity though, as we do a teaching module at college next year so I feel like I’ve had a bit of heads up on what it’s like to teach a group lesson. Tillie gets a go with them tomorrow and to be honest I reckon we’ll have it harder herethan we will at college given that four out of the sixkids in the group don’t speak fluent English and they are all complete beginners.

Still, good experience to have and certainly a chance you don’t get every day. We were also able to ride today as the afternoon was quiet. I had the lovely Hayley, a mare who is just starting to come back into work after dropping a huge amount of weight and condition. She’s quite a sweet mare really and pleasant enough to ride. Due to being out of work for around six weeks, she has no muscle toneat all which meant she found some of the work difficult, but she tried bless her. She’s super comfy as well, so I had a nice enough time with her.

I managed to smack myself in the face with a whip this afternoon. I was showing Keli how flexible this crop was, and swatted myself in the head in the process. Which caused her to crease up and almost fall over laughing at me. She’s a really great person and has helped keep me sane through the weeks of irritating questions and kids who lack any concept of personal space. I’ll miss her.

I’ll miss everyone actually. At lunchtime we were joking about with Segolene, Rieke and Sofian, and I was really laughing. So much that it hurt my stomach. I’ve been doing that a lotlately, laughing from my belly. It feels so good to laugh and it’s all genuine. Which is lovely. But it means I will miss these people such a huge amount. They’ve become such a massive part of my life and I can’t believe I have to go back to my normal routine and leave them behind.

The affection and warmth from everyone has continued to be overwhelming. When the others found out we were leaving on Saturday there were sad faces and “nooo’s” from them. Keli has said she doesn’t know what she’s going to do when we go, and Segolene has already said she’s going to miss us loads. Athos hugged me earlier when I told him I’d saved him some cupcakes, and Anita told us that the new intern who arrived this evening could fill our position, but not our boots.